Southern Plug Magazine: Leaders of the New School ft Remy Ma Volume 2 Issue 1 C | Page 43

Rapper Lil Pump was born Gazzy Garcia in Miami, Florida in
2000. Though Garcia had little interest in making music
growing up, he took to writing raps and making his own tracks
after he was expelled from school in the ninth grade for
fighting with another student. Already friends with
Smokepurpp at this time, he began collaborating with the
rapper/producer and releasing tracks online starting in 2016,
the songs marked by a repetitive, reckless style. The response
was overwhelming, with tracks collecting millions of plays in a
relatively short time frame. Lil Pump's celebrity grew with
each song, as singles like "Broke My Wrist," "D Rose," and
"Elementary" expanded his catalog and fame. Videos, touring,
and an enormously popular social media presence all
followed, based on the strength of just a few online tracks.
Various labels expressed interest but within the first year of
his life as a rapper, he hadn't even released a mixtape, let
alone a proper full-length.